This invention relates to a pneumatic tire promoting the reduction of the fuel consumption of a vehicle, and more particularly to a pneumatic tire for passenger cars which has enabled the reduction of its rolling resistance without spoiling the tire performance, such as the traveling performance on a wet road surface (wet performance) and an abrasion resistance.
In general, rubber of a large hysteresis loss is used for a cap tread of a pneumatic tire for passenger cars so as to secure the friction performance thereof. Meanwhile, it is necessary that rubber of a small hysteresis loss be used for improving the fuel consumption by reducing the rolling resistance of the tire.
However, when rubber blended with a fuel consumption reducing component, i.e. rubber of a small hysteresis loss is used for a cap tread so as to reduce the rolling resistance of the tire, the tire performance, such as wet performance and an abrasion resistance lowers. Although generally reducing the thickness of the cap tread is effective in reducing the rolling resistance of the tire, the life of the tire with respect to the abrasion thereof decreases in accordance with a decrease in the thickness of the cap tread, or the wet performance thereof decreases due to a decrease in the depth of grooves.